Abstract: Many medical and assistive devices are experienced as unpleasant and uncomfortable. On top of their discomfort, product users may also experience social unease. We label this process “product-related stigma” (PRS). This paper presents two measuring techniques that aim to objectively assess the ‘degree’ of PRS that is ‘attached’ to products. Both experiments focus on the behavioral deviations in the walking path of passers-by during a public and unprepared encounter with a user of a stigma-sensitive product (dust mask). The ‘Dyadic Distance Experiment’ measures exact interpersonal distances, whereas the ‘Stain Dilemma Experiment’ presents the passer-by with a choice in his walking path. Both experimental techniques are predominantly suited as comparison tools, able to compare products on their PRS-eliciting potential. Designers and developers can use these results to justify design decisions with quantitative data, to assess which product properties have influenced certain reactions, and to what extent subsequent improvements have been successful.@en

When physical products become increasingly digitally connected, the traditional design space of an industrial designer becomes a blend of physical and digital elements. As a consequence of this evolution, products become a network of tangible artifacts and intangible services. While this opens a lot of design opportunities, it becomes challenging to keep track of the user and system interactions during the ideation process. Therefore, there is a need to revise the design ideation and conceptualisation tools available to design products and systems that allow interaction with both digital and physical product elements. Starting by identifying the challenges currently faced by designers, the research presented in this paper introduces and compares two creativity support tools that focus on the generation and definition of connected products. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, the comparison results in a set of requirements of what a creativity support tool for connected products concept generation should consist of in order to be useful for industrial designers. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).@en